SEC Board to Meet with NSE, Trade Groups over Capital Market

SEC DG, Arunma Oteh

By Goddy Egene

Members of the board of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will tomorrow meet with the council and management of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) and leaders of trade groups in the Nigerian capital market as part of efforts to reposition the market for better performance.

After six months without a board, the Federal Government appointed a new board led by former Director-General of SEC, Mr. Suleyman Ndanusa. The Coordinating Minister and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, had last January inaugurated the new board urging its members to ensure that the capital market proceeded in the direction that would be beneficial to the country’s economy.

THISDAY checks at the weekend showed that the board led by Ndanusa, DG and has Director-General of SEC, Ms. Arunma Oteh, and other commissioners as members, would have meetings with NSE officials and leaders of trade groups to chart a way forward for the market.

“As you know the new board chairman promised to work with all stakeholders to resolve outstanding issues that were left undone six the exit of the last Board last June. The board members will be in Lagos this week to meet with all stakeholders. For instance, tomorrow (Tuesday), the board will be meeting with NSE and afterwards meet with leaders of trade groups. The meetings will enable the board to get suggestions from stakeholders on how to improve the fortunes of the market,” a market source said.

The source added that the feedbacks from the stakeholders would assist the commission in addressing some its priorities, meant to reposition the market.

It was gathered that top among the priorities of the board is taking action on some industry reports such as the reports on demutualisation, registrars infrastructure and recapitalisation of stockbroking firms using risk based approach.

Another priority of the board is the fast-tracking of electronic filing, e-processes and the general computerisation of the organisation because SEC’s operations are said to still be heavily paper based, which is behind the market.

The board is also thinking of how to link SEC with NSE through technology for effective monitoring of the exchange. The Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (SMART) system may be explored in this regard.

As new products continue to hit the market, the new board is also considering focusing on building of staff capacity in the area of new products and processes such as securitisation, infrastructure financing, securities lending, market making, international financial reporting standards , detection of insider trading and market manipulation.
Staff welfare is equally going to be taken as top priority with aim of
resolve outstanding staff issues.